On today's BradCast: If you think the way the Republican Party has rigged and stolen the U.S. Supreme Court is appalling, just wait until you see what they're trying to do of late at a few of the state Supreme Courts! [Audio link to show is posted below.]

But, first up today: Donald Trump says the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia told him he had nothing to do with the disappearance --- and, likely, murder --- of Washington Post journalist, Saudi citizen and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Turkey. The Prince's word appears to be good enough for Trump, who went on to compare the situation to the allegations of sexual assault against now-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh

Meanwhile, the midterm elections are now exactly three weeks away and early voting got underway on Monday in Georgia where, you'll be shocked to learn, it didn't go well. After our previous coverage of ongoing racially disproportionate voter suppression schemes under the command of GA Sec. of State and Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp (who is in a tight election contest with Democrat Stacey Abrams), and after very serious and years-long concerns about their completely unsecure, wildly hackable, and 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems, it appears that the electronic pollbook systems failed across Fulton County (Atlanta) on the first day of early voting.

In not entirely unrelated news, the GOP appears to now be a wholly owned subsidiary of Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

First, in Florida, outgoing Republican Gov. Rick Scott had vowed to name three new Justices to the Court, even though the Democratic-appointed Justices he planned to replace will not be vacating their seats, because of term limits, until after Scott officially leaves office in January. Stern reports the largely good news --- with a caveat or two --- regarding the Sunshine State's Supreme Court's unambiguous ruling last week that will leave the job of appointing three new Justice to Scott's successor instead (who will be either Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum or Republican Ron DeSantis, depending on how things go on November 6th.)

Then, things get far crazier at the West Virginia state Supreme Court, where the Republican state legislature, along with Republican Gov. Jim Justice, have been attempting a coup by impeachment of all five Justices on the state's 3 to 2 Democratic-majority Court. This story has more jaw-dropping twists and turns in it than I can possibly describe here --- including five temporary replacement Justices determining that at least one of the impeachments was unconstitutional under state law and the GOP-majority state Senate which hopes to move forward with a trial anyway...if only they could only find a Justice willing to preside over it, as required by the state Constitution.

Just tune in for the insane details on how, as in Florida, West Virginia Republicans are doing anything and everything they can to blatantly steal a Democratic-majority high court.

And, as if that's not enough, Stern then reports on the wildly hypocritical decision by the U.S. Supreme Court last week that will leave a new voter suppression law --- enacted by North Dakota Republicans --- in place for the November midterms. The ruling effectively changes the state's election law at the last minute before this year's general election and is likely to disenfranchise thousands of Native American voters. The ruling threatens to undermine this year's re-election chances of Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, who won her previous election in 2012 by just 3,000 votes, and could assure Republicans hold their control of the U.S. Senate along with it.

Yes, elections and Supreme Courts --- be they at the federal or state level --- matter!

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, as the long road to recovery begins and the death toll increases after the catastrophic Hurricane Michael, and as a bought-and-sold Republican Party --- from Marco Rubio in Florida to Donald Trump in the White House --- continue to deny the deadly and costly impacts of climate change on behalf of their fossil-fueled corporate owners...

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On today's BradCast, Trita Parsi helps us make sense of the Israel/Syria attacks. I'm Angie Coiro of In Deep sitting in the host chair today.

Trita Parsi from the National Iranian American Council helps us get through the "they started it" claims around yesterday's attacks. We spend some time deconstructing media reports and voices on the issue. He talks, too, about the Americans still held hostage in Iran, and potential long-term consequences of Trump pulling out of the nuclear agreement.

Then Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch talks about the release of American hostages from North Korea. I ask him about Israel kicking a Human Rights Watch employee out, based on his support of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Then it's back to Gina Haspel, as more news came out today about inaccuracies in her Senate testimony. Daphne Eviatar of Amnesty International details Amnesty's call for Haspel's CIA bid to be rejected.

Finally, we dig to the source of allthosetroublesomeScottPruittemails with Elena Saxonhouse, senior attorney with the Sierra Club. It was the Sierra Club's dogged insistence on getting 24,000 pages of emails that opened up all those tales.

While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!

We will not be hijacked by fear and terror, as many hope, on today's or any other BradCast, even after the horrific attack in Nice, France. A few words on that, before the rest of today's show [audio link below] including...

'Tea Party' wingnut Indiana Gov. Mike Pence gets the nod to become the GOP's Veep nominee, despite differing with Donald Trump on a number of issues central to the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee's campaign, and (perhaps because of?) Pence's denial of crazy "liberal" ideas like global warming and that cigarettes are deadly.

Failed Presidential nominee and rejected VP candidate Newt Gingrich calls for the violation of both religious freedom and the U.S. Constitution;

GOP blocks last(?) "Never Trump" effort to derail Trump's nomination and begs billionaire Sheldon Adelson for millions to help pay for their convention next week in Cleveland after some corporate sponsors bail out;

A major new poll now finds Trump leading Hillary Clinton nationally (though within the margin of error) as Senate Democrats reportedly "freak out" about the presumptive Democratic nominee's plunging numbers --- even after outspending Trump 40 to 1 in swing states;

California set to finally certify results from its June 7 Presidential primary;

And remarks from the UK's new Prime Minister serve as a reminder of what 'center-right' actually means.

All of that and much more on today's BradCast, at the end of yet another disturbing week.

While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!

On today's BradCast, ownership of our nation's media gets more and more rightwing in advance of the 2016 Presidential elections.

First up, in Ohio, a newspaper owner/publisher fires the paper's editor, a 31-year employee, for daring to talk with staffers about an editorial critical of the NRA that the owner/publisher had spiked.

Meanwhile, in Nevada, the state's largest newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is secretly purchased by casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, the GOP's largest single funder during the 2012 Presidential election cycle. After a week of mystery and lies from Adelson --- and investigative reporting by the journalists who actually work at the paper, who had no idea who they now work for --- the billionaire admits that, yes, it was his family that bought the paper...and a hugely inflated price.

Media Matters' Salvatore Colleluori joins us to explain why Adelson's mysterious purchase of the R-J is so disturbing on a whole bunch of levels. Among them: While the paper was already a right-leaning news outlet, the purchase could result in still more of Adelson's far rightwing political views making it into print in the key swing-state of Nevada in a Presidential election year. Moreover, as we discuss on today's program, the takeover could also serve to help keep coverage of Adelson's own highly suspect business dealings --- from China to The Vegas Strip --- out of the pages of the biggest paper in the state's biggest city all together.

"The other newspapers that he owns have very, very distinct stances that are very much in line with him," Colleluori tells me on today's program. "Owning the biggest newspaper in the state gives him a major mouthpiece going into, not only the 2016 election, but with a big Senate election coming in Nevada, there are going to be a lot of opportunities for him to throw his weight around in the state."

"As the old adage goes," he notes, "If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em."

Also today: Some thoughts on the rightwing talk radio outlet which CNN partnered with for this week's GOP debate, where, as we note in our latest Green News Report, CNN also completely avoided discussion of climate change and the largest world agreement ever struck just days earlier, and how a record warm December in the Midwest and North-East is ending what is now almost certainly going to be the warmest year ever recorded on Planet Earth...

While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!